"Tits and tats and ripped to boot," he said, easing another step closer. "I think I'm in love. Think we can have her join the posse, Jacks?"
"No way. Besides, that ain't for us to decide."
"They look so hard," he said. "You mind if I give one a little squeeze?"
Lacey smiled. "You're talking about my muscles but you're staring at my nips."
He laughed. "Oh, I do like this one, Jackie." He looked at her. "We gotta—"
That was when Lacey kicked him. She knew how to kick, had taken classes in it, and she lashed out her foot as hard as she could, putting a lot of her lower body behind it. She landed a good one, right square in his balls. He made a breathy noise, something like "Hommf!" as he went knock-kneed and dropped to the sand. Jackie stared at him stupidly, as if trying to figure out what had just happened, while Lacey grabbed for her nunchucks. She had a grip on one end and was snapping the other in a sidearm arc when Jackie looked back at her. Her mouth was opening, starting to shout, when the steel bar caught her across the left side of her head. She tumbled to her right and hit the sand, still conscious but just barely, holding her head and groaning. Blood seeped between her fingers.
Lacey turned back to Kenny. He was down on his knees with his hands jammed between his thighs, clutching his jewels, his face gray, his mouth working.
"You fucking bitch!" he managed. "You're gonna wish—"
Lacey kicked him again, in the stomach this time, high, a bull's eye into his solar plexus. He doubled over. Kenny wouldn't be threatening Lacey or anybody else for a while.
Five seconds later she was back in her jacket and booking south with her duffel and her sleeping bag. Behind and above her she thought she heard a woman's voice cry out. The blond the two creeps had mentioned? Lacey stopped and listened. She heard another cry and looked up at a seagull coasting overhead on the breeze. It squawked again. Had that been what she'd heard?
She dropped her load and grabbed the edge of the boardwalk. The ends of the weathered boards rasped against her palms as she pulled herself up for a look—all those chin-ups at the gym were finally paying off. She held her eyes at board level. No one in sight.
She dropped back to the sand, grabbed her things, and started walking again.
No time to waste. She'd come to find her uncle.
CAROLE . . .
Sister Carole checked the Pyrex bowl on the stove. A chalky layer of potassium chloride had formed in the bottom. She turned off the heat and immediately decanted the boiling upper fluid, pouring it through a Mr. Coffee filter into a Pyrex brownie pan. She threw out the scum in the filter and put the pan of filtrate on the windowsill to cool.
She heard the sound of a car again and rushed to a window. It was the same car, the convertible, with the same occupants—
No, wait. There had been only four before. Now there were three squeezed into the rear. The woman who had been in the front earlier was in the back; she looked as if she might be sick; the man with the red Mohican seemed to be struggling with a newcomer, a young woman with long blond hair. She looked—
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the poor thing was pregnant!
Sister Carole suddenly felt as if something were tearing apart within her chest. Was there no justice, was there no mercy anywhere?
She dropped to her knees and began to pray for her, but in the back of her mind she wondered why she bothered. None of her prayers had been answered so far.
<Sacrilege, Carole! That's SACRILEGE! Now tell me why you'd be thinking the Lord would answer the prayers of such a SINNER? I know you were taught that he does, but believe me you, he doesn't!>
Maybe not, Carole thought. But if He'd answered somebody's prayers somewhere along the line, maybe she wouldn't have been forced to turn the Bennett's kitchen into an anarchist's laboratory.
The Lord helped those who helped themselves, didn't He? Especially when they were doing the Lord's work.
COWBOYS . . .
"Please leave me alone," the blonde whimpered, pushing Kenny's hand away as he tried to unbutton her top. She'd been nothing but a blubbering basket case since Al had put her kid in the trunk. "I want my little boy. Please let him out. Please!"
Al was sitting shotgun while Stan drove. Her whining was getting on Al's nerves. And so was Kenny. He turned around and checked out the back seat. Jackie was slumped on the driver side, holding an old sweatshirt against the side of her head. The bleeding had stopped but she looked pale and sick. The pregnant cow had the middle seat, and Kenny was nuzzling up against her from the other side.
Al said, "I still can't believe you got kayo'd by a girl."
Kenny kept his eyes on the cow. "I told you, man, she suckered me. I was slippin up on her, real casual like, gettin ready to make my move, and she's lookin like she's fallin for it when she punts me."
Kenny had been in sad shape for about ten or fifteen minutes, but he'd snapped back. He walked a little funny but the kick hadn't seemed to take the steam out of his usual horniness.
Jackie was another story. She'd puked once on the boardwalk, and another time in the parking lot. Al hoped she didn't puke up the car. You just didn't find a Cadillac convertible every day.
The cow started wailing about her kid again. "Please let my little boy out of the trunk! He'll suffocate!"
"Look!" Stan shouted, speaking for the first time since they'd left Point— he'd been real pissed at Kenny and Jackie for losing a girl. "I'll get your brat outta the trunk, all right. I'll tie a rope around his feet and drag him back to Lakewood if you don't shut up!"
She sobbed but didn't say anything more.
Al remembered the little kid lookin up at him as he shoved him into the trunk. "Don't let them hurt my mommy," he'd said. Kinda reminded Al of his little brother when they were kids. Never could stand his little brother.
Kenny started toyin with the cow again. "C'mon. Show ol' Kenny those pretty pregnant titties."
"Ease up, Kenny."
Kenny didn't look at him. "Mind your own fucking business, Al."
Stan looked at Al and jerked his head toward the back seat. "Straighten out your friend, will ya?"
Al grabbed Kenny's arm. "Lay off her, man."
Kenny slammed his hand away. "Yeah? What for? To save her for you? Bullshit!"
Kenny could be a real asshole at times.
"We're not saving her for me," Al said. "For Gregor. You remember Gre-gor, don't you, Kenny?"
Some of Kenny's tough-guy act faded.
"Course I do," he said. "But I don't wanna suck her blood, man." He jammed his hand down between the cow's legs. "I got other things in mind. It's been a long time, man—a long time—and I gotta—"
"What if you screw up the baby?" Al said. "What if she starts having the baby and it's born dead? All because of you? What're you gonna tell Gregor then, Kenny? How you gonna explain that to him?"
"Who says he has to know?"
"You think he won't find out?" Al said. "I tell you what, Kenny. You wanna to get your jollies with this broad, fine. Go ahead. But if that's what you're gonna do, we're droppin you and her here—right here—and drivin away. Am I right, Stan?"
Stan nodded. "Fuckin ay."
"And then you can explain any problems to Gregor yourself tonight when we meet. Okay?"
"Gregor-Gregor-Gregor! Let up, huh? You just about piss your pants every time we get near him. He ain't so tough. Gimme a stake and a hammer and show me where he snoozes and I'll show you how tough he is. Fuckin leech is what he is. Stake him through his heart, cut off his head, and then we won't have to worry bout no more fuckin shit from Gregor. Do it to alia them. Show'em all."